Key Concepts
Before diving into the platform, it helps to understand the key concepts and terminology used throughout Point. This page explains the most important terms you'll encounter.
Investment Data Intelligence (IDI)
IDI is the category of platform that Point belongs to. An IDI platform:
- Aggregates investment data from multiple sources (banks, custodians, managers)
- Cleans, governs, and validates that data
- Makes it available for analytics, reporting, and AI
- Acts as the data foundation for your entire investment operation
Think of IDI as the layer that sits between your raw data sources and everything you want to do with that data.
Independent Investment Book of Record (IIBOR)
The IIBOR is Point's core data store — your single source of truth for all investment data.
| Concept | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Independent | Not tied to any single custodian, bank, or system. You own the data. |
| Investment | Covers all asset classes — equities, fixed income, alternatives, cash, and more. |
| Book of Record | The authoritative, reconciled version of your positions and transactions. |
The IIBOR ensures that everyone in your organisation — portfolio managers, relationship managers, executives — is working from the same, accurate data.
Traditional IBORs are often provided by custodians or prime brokers, meaning they're tied to a single counterparty's view of your data. Point's IIBOR aggregates across all your counterparties, giving you a truly independent, consolidated view.
Bi-Temporal Data
Point's data warehouse uses a bi-temporal architecture. This means every data record is tracked across two time dimensions:
- Valid Time — when the fact was true in the real world (e.g., a trade settled on 15 Jan)
- Transaction Time — when the fact was recorded in the system (e.g., it was entered on 17 Jan)
This allows you to:
- Reconstruct your portfolio as it appeared on any historical date
- See what you knew at any point in time (important for compliance and audit)
- Correct data errors without losing the history of what was previously recorded
Portfolio Hierarchy
Point supports a flexible portfolio hierarchy:
Client
└── Portfolio Group (optional)
└── Portfolio
└── Sub-Portfolio (optional)
- Simple Portfolio — a flat portfolio with direct holdings
- Composite Portfolio — a portfolio that aggregates other portfolios (look-through)
- Model Portfolio — a target allocation used for comparison
Securities
In Point, a Security is any investable instrument — equities, bonds, funds, ETFs, derivatives, cash, and more. Each security has:
- Attributes — descriptive data (ISIN, name, asset class, currency, etc.)
- Prices — historical and current market prices
- Look-throughs — for funds, the underlying holdings that the fund represents
Valuation
Point calculates portfolio valuations using:
- Positions — the quantity of each security held
- Prices — the current or historical market price
- FX Rates — to convert to the portfolio's base currency
Total Value = sum of all position values in the portfolio's base currency
Latest Valuation = the most recent date for which complete pricing data is available
Data Quality & Reconciliation
Point's Data Integrity Interface continuously monitors your data for:
- Exceptions — data points that fail validation rules
- Reconciliation breaks — differences between Point's records and external sources
- Missing data — prices, rates, or attributes that are absent
Refresh Jobs are scheduled processes that pull updated data from external sources (banks, market data providers).
Point AI
Point AI is the AI layer built on top of Point's analytics. It can:
- Generate briefing notes — plain-language summaries of portfolio performance
- Answer questions about your investment data in natural language
- Produce role-specific outputs (client-ready, executive, operations)
Point AI draws directly from Point's secure, governed data — it never makes up numbers.
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| IIBOR | Independent Investment Book of Record |
| IDI | Investment Data Intelligence |
| IBOR | Investment Book of Record |
| PMS | Portfolio Management System |
| NAV | Net Asset Value |
| AUM | Assets Under Management |
| FX | Foreign Exchange |
| Look-through | Seeing the underlying holdings of a fund |
| Bi-temporal | Tracking data across both valid time and transaction time |
| Exception | A data point that fails a validation rule |
| Reconciliation | Comparing Point's data against an external source to find differences |